new website for submitting problems with GPS

[nickmc]

We've set a new website for reporting any problems with GPS:

nano - Report navigation anomalies and help make flying safer (http://nano.aero/)

The aim is to get problems into the open so they can be resolved.

It is sponsored by the CAA but you can report anonymously.

We are an independent consultancy and are funded by the CAA to investigate problems and get them resolved (eg report database errors to the publishers).

Please use it so that it can help!
Nick

Helios - Helios - Home (http://www.askhelios.com)

[david viewing]

Just wondering if your funding extends to investigating problems with VOR, DME, ADF, etc.? Or is it just GPS?

[IO540]

Agree with DW above - this is just another banal attempt to have a go at GPS.

You can make any GPS go wrong if use use a rubbish aerial.

They should have a website detailing dangerous NDB approaches, where the radiation pattern is bent through 30 degrees at about 4D, due to terrain, water, whatever.

[nickmc]

Sorry it's only GPS but it really isn't an attempt to bash GPS! Just the opposite it's meant to help!

Problems with GPS aren't only due to installation - what about database errors, interference problems.

Thisis the first time a central reporting facility has been set up but if it works maybe it can be extended to other areas. Even if not, it makes a lot of sense to report GPS problems centrally because its coverage is national (well global of course!)

Nick

[WorkingHard]

Nickmc can you get problems created by the CAA resolved as well? Absolutely magic if you could get them into 21st century (or even 20th century would be a help)

[JW411]

I got very involved with the CAA GPS trials last year for I really thought that we had a chance of entering the 21st century. I even took a CAA chap who was involved in the trials flying with me.

So what has been the result?

My local airfield (which was one of the six airfields involved in the trial) has apparently got no interest in having an approved GPS letdown procedure.

Why do you think that is?

I believe it is because the CAA have demanded that they pay for a safety review to approve the very same procedures that we used during the trial using charts prepared by the CAA!

Have any of the GPS procedures at any of the six airfields been approved?

This all appears to be a question of funding. I wish someone would sort out this mess for I would much rather do a GPS letdown than follow the approved NDB procedure (and let me tell you, I have done thousands of NDBs during the last 50 years all over the world).

[IO540]

If funding is the problem, and it certainly appears to be so after all this time, then these approaches are never likely to arrive because none of those airfields are likely to recover the survey cost from extra traffic.

IMCR training is nearly dead now (due to the uncertainty); JAA IR training is largely based on 1960s navaids, you need mandatory ATC for any instrument approach anyway, so what is the point in anybody paying for it?

Especially as anybody half smart can (and does) fly the NDB approach using GPS.

Very sad.

[flybymike]

Why should survey cost be an issue?

Why not "do what everyone does" and "overlay" the already surveyed NDB procedure using GPS , except do it officially?

[411A]

Perhaps the UKCAA should ask the FAA for a little help in approving GPS approaches.
As I recall at last count, the FAA has test flown and approved over 900 GPS approaches in the USA...and yes, my private airplane is equipped with an IFR approved GPS unit, and it has worked to perfection, for over nine years.
No 'glitches' whatsoever....none, nada, zip.

[BroomstickPilot]

Hi Flybymike,

Why not "do what everyone does" and "overlay" the already surveyed NDB procedure using GPS , except do it officially?

Because then the CAA wouldn't make any money out of it.

Broomstick.

[IO540]

If the CAA is really bent on making the reported 5 digits from every GPS approach, then we can forget them in the UK, for GA accessible airfields.

For ever.

[mm_flynn]

411,

I think you will find it is over 900 LPV approaches (i.e. ILS type approaches without the need for ground infrastructure) and thousands of LNAV or overlay approaches in the FAA land.

With such a limited deployment and such short history in use (only a few % of the existence of the British Empire) it is not surprising that the CAA is concerned about safety and proceeding cautiously with this novel new technology ;)

[beerdrinker]

And it is not only FAA land. Canada Australia and and NZ have had GPS approaches for some time. Last year with great fanfare when our beloved CAA approved 6 airfilds for GPS approaches they joined France Germany and even Hungary in Europe who have had GPS approaches for some time. In Germany the airfield does not have to be licenced. The only requirement is a AWOS typoe of weather reporting.

While the CAA is populated by people whose only knowledge of aviation is the Club/Business cabin of the airliner they travel around to endless meetings, we do not have a chance.

[wc33]

Hi, does anyone know what happened to this

website for reporting any problems with GPS?

nano - Report navigation anomalies and help make flying safer (http://nano.aero/)

The aim was to get problems into the open so they can be resolved.

It was sponsored by the CAA but you can report anonymously.


TIA

[englishal]

Probably they realised that it was a waste of time and money and that as the US has been using GPS (I was flying GPS approaches when I did my IR in 2001) then there is tons of data out there....